Graham Bigby had been in a terrible mood every since he had arrived at Saint Mary's hospital. This wasn't too surprising for Graham was a very rude man. When he was young he was a moody teenager, when he was an adult he was grumpy and now that he was old and grey he strove to be the most foul tempered old fart that had ever lived.

So when he had been admitted to Saint Mary's hospital in Manchester it was no surprise that he continued to be as miserable as possible to the good people who had set him up with a private room and worked their hardest to treat the ulcer burning his stomach. It didn't matter that they were polite and caring, to him all that mattered was how bad the food tasted, how disgusting the green walls of his room were and how annoying the constant flickering of the hospital lights was becoming.

It would be a relief to everyone when Graham could finally go home, which was apparently quite soon. The stomach ulcer had been treated via a course of antibiotics and the results had looked promising. Soon he would be home, irritating his neighbours with his moans and groans.

"How are you today Mr Bigby?" the cheerful voice of Doctor Irons asked as he appeared at the door of Graham's room. He was a nice enough man with a brilliant smile and twinkling grey eyes, which was why Graham hated him on sight. The man was in charge of a great deal of what went on at the hospital yet never seemed aggravated by his heavy work load and Graham couldn't stand his constant positivity.

"I'm doing fine," he grumbled. "Can I go home? I'm getting sick to death of sitting in this bed watching Jeremy Kyle on that little box."

Doctor Irons chuckled, unperturbed by Graham's mood, and walked to his bed side before pulling out a folder from under his arm and checking over the notes.

"I'm sure we'll have you home soon. Now I understand you've been placed on a course of antibiotics?"

"Of course I have,” Graham snarled. “That stupid Doctor Timber put me on them. I don't know why I had to stay here though, I could have taken the horrible little things at home."

"Mr Bigby stomach ulcers can result in the formation of cancer, especially in men your age."

"Well I don't have cancer so there's no bloody problem is there?" Graham snapped.

"Right you are, I'm sure we can have you out of here so-" Doctor Irons paused. "Oh my..."

"What's wrong? Are you going to tell me I’ve got to take more useless pills?” Graham grunted.

“No Mr Bigby, I’m afraid I’m going to have to operate on you.”

A cold feeling suddenly spread out through Graham’s stomach. The words registered with him but the effect had yet to sink in.

“You w-what?” he asked, a shake in his voice.

“Oh yes, I’m afraid we’ll need to operate right now,” Doctor Irons spoke, his voice grave but his eyes still bright and shining and his smile still wide and gleaming..

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re sick, Mr Bigby. And the only way to fix that is to cut you open,” he replied before turning his head towards the door. “Can I get some people in here to escort Mr Bigby to surgery?”

Four figures in blue scrubs appeared at the door, their faces hidden by surgical masks and their hair covered with plastic caps. The only part of their face that could be seen was the dull glint of their eyes.

Panic swelled in Graham. He opened his mouth to protest but before he could even speak a word Doctor Irons plunged a syringe into the side of his neck. His cries of fear and outrage became pathetic splutters as every muscle in his body turned to jelly.

“Don’t worry Mr Bigby, you’re going to be just fine. Why, when you wake up I promise that you’ll feel better than you’ve ever felt in your whole miserable life.” Doctor Irons told him pleasantly before he and the four surgeons wheeled the poor old man out of the room.

Very few people asked what happened to Graham, he had no family or friends to ask about him, but those who did get curious were simply told that Mr Bigby had developed a serious condition, had needed to operated on and unfortunately had not survived the operation.

It was the ninth person that month that had gone through the emergency operation. All of them the same: bitter, grumpy, alone and angry, the type of people that wouldn’t be missed, for they left no one behind to wonder if something terribly wrong was going on.

And terrible things were going on in Saint Mary’s hospital.... but it was bad luck for the terrible creatures that caused the terrible things, for a mad man in a dressing gown had checked in to the hospital. And he had noticed everything.

Whether it was among his top priorities however was a different question.

***

“Now... I’m going to ask you a very important question, probably the most important of in your life,” the man spoke solemnly as he gazed into the eyes of the children that sat in front of him. “It’s not hard to answer and no one will get in trouble. So answer me this... which one of you ankle biter’s nicked my fruit pastels?”

The children laughed and scrambled to their feet as they ran away from the odd man. He was a good looking man, although perhaps a little bedazzled, and had wavy blonde hair, an unshaven face and was dressed in blue pyjamas and a matching dressing gown.

Before he had raced into the children’s ward on a wheelchair the place had been a gloomy. No matter how energetic the child being sick always took its toll, but when the odd man had rolled in and began popping wheelies in the wheel chair whilst making terrible jokes the gloom had vanished and laughter had returned to the children.

The nurses had wanted to ask the man to leave, his gorgeous face was very distracting and his silliness was causing no end of problems, but no one could bring themselves to do it. His childishness was infectious and it was nice to see the kids happy.

A young woman watched the spectacle before her with a warm smile. Those children that were currently laughing and running about were all depressed and unwilling to leave their beds before a rather eccentric man decided to pay a visit. She had just finished helping one of the nurses fill out a few charts when he had come in on a wheelchair, followed by all kinds of silly antics.

"Excuse me, sir?" The young nurse, her name tag reading "Jenna," approached the man in blue pajamas with a warm smile. "Might I ask your name? I couldn't help but notice you being so good with the children, however we have a responsibility to know the names of their visitors." She held out her hand, "My name is Jenna Bennett, and its nice to meet you. I admire how you handle children, it is very nice to see smiles on their faces."

The man swiveled in the wheelchair to face the nurse. There was a broad grin plastered on his face, two small kids were hanging off the back of his wheelchair, cheering for him to race them. His eyes twinkled as he took the woman in. Jenna would not be able to place it, but as she looked into his eyes she would swear that she was looking at something abnormal. The strangers eyes just seemed so... impossible. Young, yet old. Calm, but angry. Cheerful, yet so very sad.

"You may ask my name Jenna Bennett," the man replied to the nurse cheerfully before reaching out and taking her hand. He shook her hand, but not in a normal way, instead he shook it, turned it, locked his fingers with hers and then finally fist bumped her. It was a bizarre sight that made the children and the nurses watching giggle, but whether the weird handshake was a joke or just his way of greeting people the man didn't let on.

"You know, I've always liked the name Jenna Bennet. Well, at least I think I have. I could just like names that begin with J and B," the man said before he sharply turned his head towards the ceiling as the lights in the room suddenly flickered. "There have been some cracking people with J names and B surnames," the man continued pleasantly, as if his attention weren't divided. "You got James L. Brooks, James Bond, James Baldwin, I think the only person I met that spoiled the J and B names was John Wilkes Booth. Bad actor and not a very nice person."

The flickering lights had stopped and the man had now reached into his pocket and pulled out two objects that looked like an odd set of divining rods, each branded with a plus and a minus sign. He held them in front of him and began to turn on the spot, but didn't at any point drop his gaze from the ceiling. Eventually, he stopped as his wheelchair pointed to the exit to the children's ward, and dropped his gaze before turning back to Jenna.

"This has been fun. I was only supposed to come down here for a bit and track that naughty current, but I couldn't resist cheering up the little monsters. Can't stand seeing sad faces" The man chuckled while juggling the divining rods in his hands. His impossible eyes met Jenna's and he gave her one last grin before getting to his feet and passing his wheelchair to a bunch of kids, who immediately began pretending it was a tank. He strode out the room without another word, only to return a moment later to walk up to one of the kids, who had been greedily munching on a pack of fruit pastels, and snatch one of the sweets before flicking it high into the air and catching it in his mouth.

"I'm the Doctor," he spoke to Jenna from over his shoulder. "I'm a peculiar man with a peculiar life and I get a lot of people into peculiar types of trouble. I'm telling you this because I think that ten seconds after I've left you're going to run after me. I would advise against it, but people like you never listen to me." he tossed a fruit pastel to her before giving her a wink. "At least that's what I remember... Too-da-loo!"

And with that, he walked out the room and made his way down the corridor.

The man's eyes, as he turned to face her, were so intriguing. The depth in that gaze, she'd never seen anything like it in a person before. And then there was the handshake. It started relatively normal, but then the rest was just confusing and hard to follow. This man found the most interesting ways to modify the simplest actions. She couldn't help the small smile that would not leave her face. Her brows furrowed and she followed his gaze when the lights suddenly flickered, looking up at the ceiling and then back at the man. The rods he had pulled out looked like nothing she had ever seen before, and the grin he flashed her before beginning to depart was irresistibly charming. She began to feel disappointment when she saw him walk away, but that changed when he began to speak. The Doctor? What kind of name was that? She wasn't going to run after him, was she?

"And right on time," the Doctor spoke under his breath as he heard Jenna Bennett chase after him. He had been striding down the corridor with both hands in his dressing gown pockets, staring at the white line of electric lights built into the ceiling above his head. He drew to a stop before swiveling on his feet to face Jenna, crashing into her as she ran into him. Before the two of them could tumble over he caught her in his arms and held her up.

"Surely I don't need to explain whats going on?" the Doctor asked before pointing up at the ceiling, his hand still wrapped around her wrist. "The lights flickered. Lights flicker when either the fuses of the bulbs are burning out or something is wrong with the power source. Now, seeing as it's unlikely that every bulb in the hospital is burning out then that must mean something is wrong with the hospital's generator.

"But, that isn't right," the Doctor said with a shake of his head, "A hospital shouldn't have problems like that. Hospitals have back up generators to make sure the electricity supply is constant. After all, people on life support need to be kept bleeping and surgeons need to be able to see in the dark. If there was something wrong with one generator then they would get it fixed immediately. To let all of the generators go bust would be unacceptable. So why has no one bothered to do something about it?"

The Doctor turned back to Jenna, his hands were still holding her wrists in front of her chest. His near golden eyes were staring into hers intensely, but yet there was something reassuring about how he held his gaze.

"You've been wondering this for a while haven't you Jenna?" he asked softly, "You've wanted to ask the questions, but you've been afraid of what might happen. Nothing has felt right for the last month and its been worrying you. Do you know how I know this?" He slowly lifted the hand he had shook before her face. "Because you don't have a pin prick sized scar on your hand."

"You have questions Jenna Bennett, ask them." he said warmly, then paused and let out a heavy sigh. "But first could you take your foot off mine? You're stood on my feet, wearing heels, and I don't have any shoes on."

Jenna gasped and stumbled as she and the Doctor collided. She felt her heart skip a beat as he caught the both of them at just the right second. She blinked a couple times as the man started speaking, making sure to follow his thoughts as they streamed out of his mouth. She could feel his hands on her wrists, and everything this man was saying to her were the exact things she had been thinking for the past month. But why was he here? Why was he the only other person asking questions? Why was he the only person voicing them? She then felt something soft under her shoe, and with his words realized that she must have caused him pain. She quickly moved her foot away, "Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't realize..." but then she though back to the intensity in his gaze and problems at the hospital. "Wait, why would I have a scar on my hand? And how could you tell it was there if it was that small? Who has that kind of scar? And, what is this current that you mentioned?" The questions began to fill her mind, and finally there was someone to voice them to.

"Its simple to explain." The Doctor began, whilst sheepishly rubbing the red mark her heels had pressed into his foot with with the other foot. "A hospital like this has lots of staff, probably between fifty to a hundred. It cannot be possible that none of them have asked about the lights." The Doctor had begun pacing in front of Jenna, walking back and forth in a triangular pattern, his gaze constantly switching from Jenna, to the lights, to his hands, which were miming along with his explanations.

"So someone at some point must have asked the question and then become very fed up when the lights kept playing up. They were probably rude and used a lot of words beginning with F and B, but this didn't last, because soon they would completely forget what they were upset about, because of this!" The Doctor whirled on his feet and thrust his hand in front of her face. Between his fingers was an incredibly small speck of metal.

“An Agicon Nullifier, it’s a microchip that programmes the body to release endorphins whenever it is under certain levels of stress. In other words, it makes you stop being concerned or agitated about life’s little problems.”

“And you don’t have one inside of you Jenna Bennett," the Doctor added before nodding to her hands. "I checked when I shook your hand, you don't have a scar anywhere on your hand. This is a microchip designed to be injected through a tiny needle, built into a wedding ring, which of course you Westerners wear on your left hand. It’s a device created for being administered by left handed people through hand contact.”

“Clever...” The Doctor said and smirked before turning on his feet again. The smirk broadened to a grin and he began wagging his index finger in front of him, as if he were chiding an invisible enemy.

“Eight Six percent of the members of staff have a scar on their hand. Every time a member of staff asks the question the assailant will assure them that it will be dealt with and them give them a reassuring hand shake to let them know it’s being taken care of. And that’s when the Agicon nullifier does its work.”

“So the only question that remains...” the Doctor said before turning his attention back to the lights, “Is why does the enemy want everyone to ignore the jittering lights? Why don’t they want people tracking the electric current and finding out where the hospitals power goes several seconds of every day?”

The Doctor stopped looking at the lights and turned his head to look at Jenna again. He grinned at her with a mouth full of perfect pearly teeth. “Can I call you JB?” he asked, “If you’re going to ask me more questions then I think shortening your name to JB would save us a few microseconds Jenna Bennett.”

Jenna's brows furrowed. "Umm, sure. JB is fine." she said absentmindedly. "What I want to know is, how did you find that thing? It's so tiny. Also, how did you conclude that it came from a ring and a handshake? Have you come across this kind of problem before?" For every answer she got, it seemed like it was just replaced by another question. Although, she had noticed that people didn't seem to complain much about anything anymore. "I think that I have noticed some people acting a bit odd. I accidentally spilled some coffee on a surgeon last week, and as soon as he started getting ready to yell, he smiled instead and told me that everything was alright. I didn't think much of it at the time." Jenna said. She paused, thinking. "You know, I think I remember being told that the lights may be due to a new wing of the hospital that's being added. No one knows what it's for, nor has anyone seen it, but I think it is rumored to be an addition to the basement, of all places."

"JB you beauty!" The Doctor cheered and leaped forward to grab her by the wrists and spin on the spot with her. "Agicon nullifiers, flickering lights and now a mysterious secret basement," he stopped spinning her and grinned at her excitedly.

"Do you know what this all means JB?" he asked, but didn't let her finish. "It means we should be terrified and do you know why that is?" Again he didn't let her answer, instead he let go of her wrists and backed up into a set of double doors that JB would now realise they been stood outside of for the last few minutes. The Doctor kicked the door open and wandered inside. The room was dark and deserted, the small of sterilization still fresh in the air.

"Because this empty room should be occupied right now," the Doctor spoke before walking over to the nearest table and picking up a medical chart that lay abandoned on its surface. "A team of surgeons should be operating on a Mr Coleman right now," the Doctor spoke solemnly as he glanced over the chart. "He should be having one of those emergency operations that I've heard so little about."

"More secrets..." the Doctor whispered before putting the chart down and pulling out the divining rods once again. He held them in the air and began waving them about as if he were signalling a plane for landing. He was quiet in his concentration for a few moments. Then he turned back to JB pocketed the divining rods.

"The reason why I found the Agicon nullifier is because I was looking for it," the Doctor explained with a cheeky grin. "And I know its part of a ring because I'm brilliant. I'm amazing really," he paused to think before continuing to blabber on. "Infact... I'm brillmazing. No wait! I'm incredible. Incredible! I like that word!"

"JB from now on my word will be incredible!" The Doctor said excitedly and pointed at her purposefully. "From now on you are to use the word incredible to describe me to your family and friends."

Jenna's head spun as the Doctor whirled her around, a giggle escaping her lips, as his excitement was addicting. "Who came up with the name 'Agicon nullifer' anyway? What does it mean?" she asked.

"Wha-" she started, before she was cut off. This time, she waited for his answer. She suddenly noticed the doors that they had been in front of, and followed the Doctor inside.

"So if the people aren't in here, they must be in the top-secret basement. Likely performing the mystery operation, or something of the sort. And this operation is sapping power from the hospital's generators." Jenna said.

"Another thing, if we are mostly sure of where the power is going, why do you keep tracking it?" she asked.

She couldn't help but chuckle when the man kept complimenting himself. "You're incredible. Now, as much as I believe you, I agree that you are brilliant, but I'm going to need a little bit of proof before I tell everyone that you're incredible." she challenged with a smile.

"Oooo JB, you're cheeky," the Doctor spoke, his grin growing even broader before he crossed over to a heart monitor. "Challenge accepted. Now, the reason why I'm tracking the current is because I wanted to know the direction which the electricity was going in. You see I believed that all the horrible things that were happening were going on in the operating rooms, because that was the direction the current took me in the first place, but I had no proof and recently I've become a guy who likes to be prepared before he runs into trouble. I sincerely hope it's just a phase."

"I've been in several different places around the hospital tracking the direction in which the current goes and have finally worked out where its going," the Doctor began to hook himself up to the heart monitor, placing wires on his chest and a clip on his index finger, but he didn't stop there. He quickly walked over to another heart monitor and hooked himself to it, this time taking care to attach the wires to the other side of his chest.

"What I found out..." He paused for no other reason than to build suspense, "...was that the electricity was going to the basement and now I think it would be a lovely idea to check that out, because for some reason the electricity isn't stopping at the basement, its going 500 feet underground."

He turned to JB and placed his hands on his hips before giving her a cocky smile. "My incredibleness has no doubt stunned you into silence, but before you tell me how great I am...check this out."

The Doctor flipped a switch on both of the heart monitors that he was attached to. The machines sprung to life, wiggly lines forming on their screens to map the sound of the Doctors pulse. An irregular bleeping sound filled the room, the beat of the machines hammered away like an electronic drum beat.

"That's right," the Doctor said, looking rather pleased with himself as he watched JB react to the revelation that his anatomy was beyond anything she had ever learned in any Medical University. "I've got two hearts and they beat like bongo drums. I'm a walking comedian with a drum kit playing in my chest. I'm what's known as a Time Lord and that makes me, if I do say so myself, quite incredible."

Jenna was, in fact, rather stunned that each heart of the Doctor's beat separately. Obviously, she's never seen anything like this and she was baffled.

"Oh my! How? This is unbelievable! How do they both fit inside your ribcage? What's the benefit of having two hearts? Also, what exactly is a Time Lord?" Jenna took out her stethoscope, and grabbed a second off a metal table, fixed one in each ear and listened to the Doctor's hearts herself, running the cool metal over his chest sporadically, and unintentionally wedging herself between his knees.

"And while I'm asking questions, what could possibly be buried 500 feet underground that a hospital would ever use?"

She shook her head. "But Doctor, you really are absolutely in-ah-a-mazing!" She caught herself before she said "incredible," feeling impish and adding a smirk.

The Doctor looked a little embarrassed by the sudden display. He had wanted her to be impressed, but Jenna didn't seem to be too aware that she was invading his personal space quite a bit. However, the Doctor just turned his head, coughed and continued to talk.

"Well, I'm glad you understand. I am rather...those things..." The Doctor said awkwardly while she ran the stethoscope across his chest. It was cold to the touch and tickled him a little causing him to squirm on the spot.

"N-Now to answer your questions in order..." his voice trailed off and he took a step back. "Number one, they just do. Number two, I don't die so easily and have great circulation. Number three, a Time Lord is an alien that's usually rather pompous, but in my case I'm attractive and wild and lead humans astray to have as much fun as possible."

"And finally number four!" The Doctor roared before suddenly collapsing on the ground and pressing his ear to the floor. "I don't know...that's what's bothering me. I really don't know..."